Kwame Bediako summarizes the trends of African theology under two headings: liberation and study of indigenous religions. He focuses on the latter, emphasizing that this study is a theological enterprise, and not simply cultural anthropology. He also suggests that this emphasis of African theology . . . . Continue Reading »
Philippians 2:17-18: But even if I am being poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I rejoice and share my joy with you all. You too, I urge you, rejoice in the same way and share your joy with me. Christians sometimes misunderstand joy. We think of joy as an . . . . Continue Reading »
Philippians 2:5: Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus. Toby has pointed out this morning how much Paul emphasizes the effect of the gospel and the Spirit on our minds. We are to strive together with one mind, to cultivate humility of mind, set our minds on heavenly things - on the . . . . Continue Reading »
Genesis 2:21-22: So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. The LORD God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. Let us Pray. Blessed are You, . . . . Continue Reading »
Bediako says that Christianity has always had more success evangelizing primal religious areas than “advanced” religions like Buddhism or Hinduism or Islam. Or modern Western secularism. Perhaps the West needs to be re-primitivized in order to be re-evangelized. Or perhaps the West . . . . Continue Reading »
According to the Muslim commentator Ibn Abbas, “after the fall, Adam and Eve fasted for forty days and Adam abstained from having sex with Eve for a hundred years.” . . . . Continue Reading »
George Williamson argues in Longing for Myth in Germany (Chicago, 2004) that the search for a “new mythology” developed from “the postrevolutionary experience of historical rupture and religious crisis.” Nationalist writers gave a particular spin to this by calling for a . . . . Continue Reading »
It is widely argued today that the early German romantic movement anticipates postmodernism; the early romantics were postmoderns before their time. Frederick Beiser differs, and notes three critical differences between German romanticism and the mainstream of postmodern philosophy. First, the . . . . Continue Reading »
German idealism is often seen as the completion of the subjectivization of knowledge and reality begun by Descartes. Not so, says Frederick Beiser in his massive 2002 history of German idealism (Harvard): “In fundamental respects it is more accurate to say the exact opposite: that the . . . . Continue Reading »
Jean-Luc Marion challenges the Cartesian cogito by stressing the primacy of the erotic. According to Descartes’s formula ( Ego sum res cogitans ), “it follows by omission that I am no longer supposed to love, nor to hate; or better: I am of such a sort that I have neither to love, nor . . . . Continue Reading »
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